


The Glorious Dead

by kalypsobean



Category: The Iliad - Homer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:39:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2835080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>nobody wanted this</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Glorious Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arysteia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysteia/gifts).



> Happy holidays to arysteia! I hope you like your gift.

Nobody wants a war.

Achilles wants glory, to live, to be known and to ascend. War is how he gets it; he kills and the sun flashes on his armour, acknowledging the sacrifices he gives for the favour of the gods. He wanted to go home, but the bone-deep knowledge that he will die here makes him stay despite all portents. 

Patroklos wants Achilles to see him for more than he is; he wants Achilles to forget the boy and see the man. He cleans Achilles' armour carefully and wears it; it serves him well enough for all that it doesn't fit him as cleanly, his muscles not as well developed. There is room for a sword to thrust between the plates.

Hektor wants to protect his land. He fights because it is necessary, because he has to set an example to raise the spirits of tired, flagging farmers who wish they were tending green crops much further inland. He kills only because the Greeks would kill him otherwise, because it will end when there is nobody left.

Andromache wants peace. It will mean her husband comes home, that her son will grow up to know the arts before he knows the smell of blood and dirt and death. It will mean Hektor will look at her as a woman and not as a thing to be locked away and kept safe, taken out only to be marvelled at and treated with cool respect for a few minutes a day.

 

Nobody wanted this, though it was inevitable; even the gods take sides and wound each other in the name of a cause nobody remembers, the result of ages of petty offenses. The world is remade and the balance is forever altered.

Nobody gets their wish by joining the glorious dead.


End file.
